Introduction: Tissue Box With LED Light Show

By

Having a normal tissue box is no big deal or using Arduino to make light shows are too hard. But by combining the two things you get something totally different.

Lightshow Original Code

Step 1: Materials

  • 10 LEDs ( Blue, Green, Red, White, Yellow ) * two of each
  • 6 220-ohm resistors
  • 4 100-ohm resistors
  • Arduino UNO or LEONARDO
  • USB cable 12 M-to-M jumper wires
  • A breadboard
  • A box that fits your breadboard
  • A box of tissue
  • Decorations ex: colored paper, decorative tape, markers etc.
  • A pair of scissors and or a utility knife
  • Staplers
  • Tape

Step 2: Connecting the LEDs

I aligned them in a row and 2 holes from each other to have all 10 LEDs fit on the breadboard. The right side is the longer lead, the positive end, that connects with a digital pin. The left side is the shorter lead, the negative end, uses either a 220 or 100-ohm resistor connecting to the negative rail of the breadboard. The order and arrangement of the colors don't matter, you can place them based on personal preferences.

*Using a 220-ohm resistor gives you a smaller and more concentrated light while using a 100-ohm resistor seems a lot brighter compared to a 220-ohm resistor. So you can randomly change any color of light from a 220-ohm resistor to a 100-ohm resistor to show a sense of variety in your results.

Step 3: Coding

Connect the Arduino to your computer with the USB cable. The coding of the light show is here. The delays can be changed and the sequences can also be switched. Make sure your number of less is changed if you used more or less LED lights. As well as the pins of the less.

Attachments

Step 4: Making the Tissue Box

The box has to be able to fit your Arduino thing and doesn't have to have a look pretty because you get to decorate it later on. What I did was cut out a rectangle and stuck a piece of paper to soften the light on the long side of the box. There is another square hole on the short side for your USB cable to go through. Then I decorated the box with colored paper. On one side of the top of the box, I also cut out a small rectangle so the tissue can be pulled out. The two pieces on top were fixed with staples because I couldn't find anything better that could make them stay. But if you have a better idea please do so since using staples is really inconvenient.